About Dr. Ellie

Hi, and welcome! I'm Dr. Ellie.
I have a doctorate in educational psychology. For over 13 years, I taught middle school level special education, reading, and social studies. My special education specialties include learning, behavioral, and emotional challenges.
For 12 years, I taught at the post-secondary level, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. My main area of university teaching is research and educational psychology, and I consult on dissertation methods and analysis. Most recently, I was a mentor of doctoral learners at the University of Phoenix. Currently, I am residing in the country of St. Maarten in the Dutch Caribbean, where I have become involved in special education consulting.
Hobbies include reading (especially reading and critiquing young adult fiction), quilting, and crochet. I also enjoy walking, art museums, great music (from classical to contemporary), and exploring new local places. I love photography, and am trying my hardest to become a passable picture snapper.

Have you ever wondered what the questions look like for the NAEP? Here’s a tool that lets your know. I found some of the questions interesting. For example, I landed on a music knowledge question. Considering that many schools are dropping their music programs because districts are losing funding, I found the “music responding” content classification to be nearly superfluous at this time. However, a lot of schools have managed to save their programs, so perhaps this content area is not so surprising. However, here’s the link to the tool. Explore, learn, and enjoy!

Years ago, I was told that one of the reasons that American Indian educational issues are not studied by IES/NCES (Institute of Educational Sciences/National Center for Education Statistics) is because American Indians represent too small a proportion of the population and they are not a politically “hot” area for study. I was still a graduate student at the time, and was participating in a government-sponsored workshop on using the NCES databases–specifically the NELS:88 (National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988) database for research. Clearly, active study of educational issues related to this very important (to me) small population has not changed.

However, there isa site now that dedicated to American Indians, and it can be found through the link below. If you are interested research or research results about American Indian education issues, this may be the place to start. If enough interest is generated in the site, maybe issues related to indigenous populations will hit the forefront.